MOT / ACC on MC speeders

[candor]

From MOT June 2006 speed factsheet

"contributing factor in fatal crashes for 23% of car and van drivers and 41% of motorcyclists. 10% of truck drivers involved in fatal crashes were speeding".

ACC has one too (a virtual book that must have swallowed a couple of wages for a year). This volume concludes with claims anyone going 10 k over limits has a higher offense risk rating (4) than someone on the legal alc limit (3) so should be punished the same - jail for example!

WOW - and I find after much digging that their research putting inapt speed as the number 1 factor is both based on estimates (only have known speeds for 50% of fatal crashes) and includes drunks (1/2 of the so called speed dead were drunks)!

Where do MOT scientists and ACC workers get their qualifications. To any sentient being their research is a joke.

[Lou Girardin]

'Speeding' being too fast for the conditions. (Their definition)
Speed enforcement has no relevance whatsoever in dealing with this problem, unless they make it a capital offense to exceed the safe speed for the slowest corner in NZ.

[Clockwork]

Their research isn't for sentient beings..... it's for politicians.

[MSTRS]

At the Hawkes Bay mtg on Tuesday, I proposed doing away with the 'one speed fits all' 100kph with the suggestion including lifting the limit to 120kph on open straight(ish) highways (eg Takapau Plains, Himitangi straights)...this STUPID woman from ACC stated that it wouldn't be safe on roads without a median barrier. WTF??!!
No answer to my response (funny that) which was "If I cross the centreline at 100kph and headon with a vehicle doing the same (combined impact of 200kph), then we are all dead. What's the difference adding 40kph combined?"

[candor]

Mstrs - I know where her illogic is coming from
The true agenda of the speed BS is to try and psychologically trick everyone to go at 80 without having to unpopularly lower the speed limit. Because a head on at 80 is more survivable than at 100 - you will get one dead driver not 2 if you lucky. I know! Tho the survivor driver will probably be better off dead for all the damage they'll have. Still it trims the toll so looks better on paper when we have to report our figures to the W.H.O. / World Bank.

The clear solution to keep everyone happy is to throw in 200 k of median barriers a year (with rubber protection for bikes) till all main highways done and up the speed limit so we can join the first world. Problem is we're rated by World Bank as second world so undeserving of such safety and efficiency. And that we follow Australias lead in all road safety matters. They aren't doing medians as they have too much remote road thats hard to maintain (unlike us). Still we copy them and deal with things in primitive manner.

[SPman]

What road safety in Aus. - a big thing over here is the metal strip at the side of country roads - drivers drop a wheel on the gravel (the seal is quite narrow on most roads) and promptly lose control of their vehicles!

We seem to be going back to the official view that the human body will explode if it exceeds the speed of a horse!

[James Deuce]

Because a head on at 80 is more survivable than at 100 - you will get one dead driver not 2 if you lucky.

No it's no. It's the same as driving into an immovable object at 160km/hr.

[MSTRS]

Mstrs - I know where her illogic is coming from
The true agenda of the speed BS is to try and psychologically trick everyone to go at 80 without having to unpopularly lower the speed limit. Because a head on at 80 is more survivable than at 100 - you will get one dead driver not 2 if you lucky. I know! Tho the survivor driver will probably be better off dead for all the damage they'll have. Still it trims the toll so looks better on paper when we have to report our figures to the W.H.O. / World Bank.

The clear solution to keep everyone happy is to throw in 200 k of median barriers a year (with rubber protection for bikes) till all main highways done and up the speed limit so we can join the first world. Problem is we're rated by World Bank as second world so undeserving of such safety and efficiency. And that we follow Australias lead in all road safety matters. They aren't doing medians as they have too much remote road thats hard to maintain (unlike us). Still we copy them and deal with things in primitive manner.
If you get where she is coming from, then you must be one of the 'chosen few'....Jim2 is right and so am I. I remember the original ads when seatbelts were becoming standard equipment...basically it said that without a seltbelt it takes 5/8th of a second to die at 80kph (flail chest)...that is the same as a headon of 2 vehicles travelling at only 40kph each. And yes, I realise that seatbelts save lives which is a good thing, but this bullshit we are surrounded by....:puke:

[Lou Girardin]

No it's no. It's the same as driving into an immovable object at 160km/hr.

Wouldn't the fact of two cars with crumple zones mitigate the effects of a 160 km/h head on as compared to only one when you hit an immovable object?

[James Deuce]

Wouldn't the fact of two cars with crumple zones mitigate the effects of a 160 km/h head on as compared to only one when you hit an immovable object?

Not enough to save lives.

There's a fearsome amount of energy generated in a head on collision.

It increases by the square of the velocity too.

I know it's a bogus US legal page but it does explain the physics involved really wel.

http://consumerlawpage.com/article/air-bag-safety.shtml

[sAsLEX]

It increases by the square of the velocity too.

ssshhhhhh dont let them hear that! they might start to back up some of their wacky claims with science!

[idb]

We seem to be going back to the official view that the human body will explode if it exceeds the speed of a horse!
I have a man walk in front of my bike waving a red flag whenever I go out.

[Lou Girardin]

I heard of a 200 km/h head-on that both drivers survived. It was an autocide on the Southern M/way some years back. One car was a 240Z, can't remember the other. Luck and the way the cars hit probably had a lot to do with the survival.

[James Deuce]

ssshhhhhh dont let them hear that! they might start to back up some of their wacky claims with science!

Science + Psuedo Science = Public Policy.

Such has it always been.

The simplest way to mitigate the issues above is to limit the opportunity for traffic to meet head on.

[James Deuce]

I heard of a 200 km/h head-on that both drivers survived. It was an autocide on the Southern M/way some years back. One car was a 240Z, can't remember the other. Luck and the way the cars hit probably had a lot to do with the survival.

There's always exceptions, but the vast majority of head on accidents at motorway speeds mean death for all the occupants involved.

[sAsLEX]

There's always exceptions, but the vast majority of head on accidents at motorway speeds mean death for all the occupants involved.

Motorways avoid head ons by having seperated traffic flows. Open roads are another issue though.

[James Deuce]

Most civilised countries separate inter-city highways into two lanes one way, two lanes the other and separate them geographically.

[candor]

Yes Jim 2 - I agree most "motorway speed" headons will result in death.

But clearly if they all happened at 80 it would be less of a death toll than if all head ons happened at 100. Not safe - but less harmful kinda.

Or else why did the guy who killed my mum in a head on survive (with only compressed legs and no flail chest to show for it). When she got flail chest, twisted and cut up and flattened by the motor and steering column attack.

I'm sure he'd have got knocked off if another 10 or 20 k was added.

If like most drinking drugging regularly crashing freaks you have a big strong car you will have a better chance of making it through a head on when both cars are going at 80 than at 100.

I am firmly of the opinion the killer would have done us all a service had he not hear the speed kills message. As then my mother would have died faster with less agony and he would be one less hazard to worry about on the road.

Don't worry he still drives tho disqualified. And he'll be out by xmas with his one third parole (7 mths for a life) so should be crashing again at below radar speeds soon enough (generally does so 4 hours after his methadone).

And don't you worry that his last car is scrapped and he could pay no reparation for the homicide - for every car he writes off Daddy buys him a big new weapon too.

So thats how I form my opinion the ACC lady has a slight tho distorted point.

[MSTRS]

Sorry to hear that, Candor. No disrespect was intended by my earlier post...dumb luck will always see some survive (albeit the wrong ones often). I still stand by what I said tho - combined speed headons of 160/200/240kph will not normally produce survivors

[candor]

You've got me curious now. I'm going to see if theres any real life studies that show the odds at each scenario you raise. There must be some sliding scale here - got to be. I survived no scratch, a head on at round mutual 65 - a idiot said he decided to come at me cos apparently he hallucinated something threattening was on his side of road(lost car tho). I think its side impacts are worse at lower speeds to kill ya'.

[What?]

No it's no. It's the same as driving into an immovable object at 160km/hr.
Bollocks! Unless one of the vehicles has zero mass.
The damage is done by Force, not Speed.
Force = Mass x Acceleration.
Two 1 tonne vehicles colliding head-on at 100Km/hr will each suffer the same damage as they would by driving into a cliff at 100Km/hr, not 200.

[James Deuce]

Bollocks! Unless one of the vehicles has zero mass.
The damage is done by Force, not Speed.
Force = Mass x Acceleration.
Two 1 tonne vehicles colliding head-on at 100Km/hr will each suffer the same damage as they would by driving into a cliff at 100Km/hr, not 200.

Sorry mate, the kinetic energy in the accident is the same as a dead stop into an immovable object at the combined velocity.

[MSTRS]

Bollocks! Unless one of the vehicles has zero mass.
The damage is done by Force, not Speed.
Force = Mass x Acceleration.
Two 1 tonne vehicles colliding head-on at 100Km/hr will each suffer the same damage as they would by driving into a cliff at 100Km/hr, not 200.
Nup!! There is forward momentum involved with each vehicle at it's individual speed. The combined momentum is the sum of the two speeds.
Think that a (cliff) resists the impact by not moving, but opposing vehicles each add their own impetus into the equation

[Squeak the Rat]

Two 1 tonne vehicles colliding head-on at 100Km/hr will each suffer the same damage as they would by driving into a cliff at 100Km/hr, not 200.
What?

fc

[scumdog]

I just LOVE KB maths and physics!!!:gob:

Never got taught anything like it at crash investigators course.

[Lou Girardin]

Yes Jim 2 - I agree most "motorway speed" headons will result in death.

But clearly if they all happened at 80 it would be less of a death toll than if all head ons happened at 100. Not safe - but less harmful kinda.


Nope. It's still way over the threshold that crash protection is designed for. 160 km/h or 200, it has the same effect. If you lower speed limits to the the level NCAP tests are done at, you will reduce injuries and fatals.
Survival is more a matter of luck than any thing else at high speeds..

[Jantar]

What? is correct in his statement
Two 1 tonne vehicles colliding head-on at 100Km/hr will each suffer the same damage as they would by driving into a cliff at 100Km/hr, not 200., but so is Jim2 when he says
Sorry mate, the kinetic energy in the accident is the same as a dead stop into an immovable object at the combined velocity.

What everyone seems to be forgetting here is that vehicles crumple on impact, and the amount of energy transmitted to the human bady during a crash is proportional to the distance travelled during the crash, and the square of the speed change. Two one tonne vehicles hitting each other head on at 100 kmh will impart the same energy to the drivers as if a single vehicle runs into a rock wall at 100 kmh.

However a 400 kg bike/rider combination at 100 kmh hitting a 1600 kg vehicle also at 100 kmh would be the same as is the rider had run into a cliff head on at 160 kmh. Meanwhile the driver of the heavier vehicle would not escape uncathed as he would feel as if he had just driven into a cliff at 40 kmh. The impact energy on the rider would be 16 times that of the driver.

[MSTRS]

I know what you are saying, Jantar. Simply combining the two speeds is somewhat simplistic and kinetic energy is not equal unless vehicles/loads are identical. But the 'argument' remains...it is not possible to discount combined momentum/kinetic energy.

[spudchucka]

What everyone seems to be forgetting here is that vehicles crumple on impact, and the amount of energy transmitted to the human bady during a crash is proportional to the distance travelled during the crash, and the square of the speed change.
Pity the "baddies" don't always crumple on impact too.